L.A. PARKER: Here's hoping Obama remains faithful

While President Barack Obama preps for a second term in the world’s most hellish position, friends, supporters and advisors are likely offering suggestions about his next four years.

My advice is simplistic: Keep it in your pants, Mr. President.

Hoopla connected to a second coming of Obama percolated through blue and red states when CIA Director David Petraeus resigned after admitting an extramarital affair. Petraeus apparently singularized his outstepping but it appears there may have been more than just one woman, including his biographer Paula Broadwell, married, a mother and mischievous.

Petraeus, 60, a U.S. war hero in Iraq and Afghanistan, could not claim NBA great Wilt Chamberlain numbers regarding his sexual indiscretions.

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One proved enough for his downfall and two much too many for a man who used valor, respect and loyalty as a calling card during his stellar career defending freedom, human rights, and family values.

While military heroes generally escape spotlight regarding extramarital affairs, U.S. presidents such as Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Warren Harding. Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson have claimed chapters about their other women.

A favorite national television show entitled “Cheaters,” which tracks cheating spouses then confronts them, could score remarkable ratings if their subject happened to be a sitting U.S. president. Or, even one lying down. Or, just lying.

Anyway, nothing ruins a guy’s image more than when he cheats on his wife. Nothing.

Girlfriends? Eh. Wife means papers, promises and pride to have that woman on your arm as years trundle by.

Instead, we get tripped up by that younger woman who is 20 or more years younger than the absolute babe we married decades ago. Petraeus had 20 years on Broadwell and almost 30 on Jill Kelley, a Tampa resident rumored to be a second paramour.

A couple of weeks ago, billionaire bully Donald Trump pledged a blockbuster announcement about President Obama, a bloodletting that he said would change the election.

Immediately, news people speculated that Trump had divorce papers allegedly filed by President Obama and wife, First Lady Michelle.

They never got divorced but President Obama admits they had a “rocky” spell. Show me a marriage worth its weight in salt that has not escaped tough times. That’s what marriage is about, rocks and hard places, with whatever downfalls feathered by love and promises.

A visit to Columbus Market this weekend produced a married coworker who had just been paged by his wife over the outdoor public announcement system.

We passed as he made his way toward his wife’s destination. That’s marriage, man. One moment you walk unattended through the aisles and lanes of a flea market and the next, your other half is treating you like her third child.

We laughed. He trudged on to find his wife and children. I thought about how blessed he really is. Maybe he didn’t notice or understand as he moved toward his family, but I would give a lot back if I still had a marriage with my first and only wife.

I read a dreadful blog post recently about some guy whining “My girlfriend is threatening to tell my wife about our affair.” Sheesh.

Initial reports are that Broadwell, already the other woman, ferreted out the “other, other woman” after discovering that phrase about “once a cheater, always a cheater.”

A military pursuit of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would have worked splendidly in this situation.

Instead, lives are ruined. Petraeus produced an honorable effort by offering his resignation, but conspiracy theories race wild about his potential absence from a Congressional intelligence committee on the Benghazi attack starting up this week.